A little more than 45 years ago, George Raveling stood near the podium in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial from which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech.

This morning, not far from that spot in our nation’s capital, Raveling – now 71 and a world traveler as an executive for the Nike Corporation – will watch as Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

Raveling became one of the nation’s first African-American head basketball coaches when he was hired at Washington State in 1972, before coaching stops at Iowa and USC. He talked by phone from Washington, D.C., Saturday about the significance of what happened on the first Tuesday in November, and what is going to happen this morning.

“I thought that maybe my son or my grandchildren might see this day,” he said. “But I didn’t see this coming.”

Raveling was working security near the podium when Dr. King gave was one of most profound speeches of the 20th century on Aug. 28, 1963.

Among his most treasured possessions are the pages of hand-written notes that served as Dr. King’s draft for the speech he delivered, which Dr. King handed to him when Raveling asked for them.

King was assassinated less than five years later on April 4, 1968 when Raveling was an assistant coach at his alma mater, Villanova.

“For the longest time,” he said, “I felt that, in a very broad sense, black Americans were lacking significant leadership in terms of someone who could motivate them to make their lives better. He (Obama) is the first guy since that the black masses rallied around.”

Obama, he believes, will serve as the ultimate role model.

“Think about it,” he said. “If Obama serves two terms, every day for eight years the most powerful person in the world will be a black man, with a black woman at his side.

“This is going to force rappers from degrading women in their songs. Before this, a (African-American) kid could ask his parents `Can I be an astronaut or a doctor?’ and they could say `yes.’ But there was never any overt evidence that he or should could be president.”

More stuff

Long Beach State basketball coach Dan Monson will cook pancakes for his players and staff this morning at his home in Los Alamitos, where the team, as a group, will watch this morning’s inauguration.

“I told (his players) that this is one of the events that you will always remember where you were when it took place,” he said Monday afternoon.

“What better place to be than with your teammates? Some of our guys didn’t know what the inauguration was all about. There is more to coaching than just teaching your players an on-ball screen.”

I have no idea what impact USC football coach Pete Carroll’s public reaction to Mark Sanchez’s decision to enter the NFL draft pool will have on the Trojans’ recruiting.

But I feel confident in saying that if a college basketball coach had reacted in the same fashion after one of his players, after having an outstanding season while leading his team deep into the NCAA Tournament, had declared for the NBA draft, his coaching foes would have drilled him on the recruiting circuit.

Anytime you’re recruiting elite level prospects on the basketball level, it’s safe to say that the ability of a coach’s program to enhance those prospects’ ability to get the NBA is a major part of the sales equation.

That’s why you almost never hear of a college basketball coach reacting to a “I’m going pro” decision by a player in the same fashion in which Carroll criticized Sanchez’s choice, regardless of how questionable that decision might be.

If a college basketball coach does that, opposing coaches will drill him to the next McDonald’s All-America caliber player he is trying to recruit, telling the player that he “will try to keep you from getting to the NBA,” etc.

No one has a greater appreciation for how hard the Long Beach State coaching staff and the program’s players have worked in order to get the 49ers on top of the Big West Conference standings after three weeks of play.

But, if you need a succinct illustration in the gap between the Big West and the Pacific 10 Conference, consider this: On Dec. 29, in Eugene, Ore., Oregon beat the 49ers, 86-74, in a non-conference game.

Since that night, the Ducks have dropped their first six Pac-10 games by an average margin of 15.3 points.

And, since returning from Oregon, the 49ers have won their first five Big West games by an average margin of 9.8 points.

UCLA opened last week with a 64-60 Pac-10 victory over USC in the Galen Center.

Each finished the week with two more games – and feeling a whole lot different about the 2-1 records they finished with.

On Thursday, the Bruins moved the ball anywhere they wanted to against Arizona’s zone defense en route to a 83-60 victory in Pauley Pauley, the same evening that the Trojans – with Daniel Hackett guarding former Artesia standout James Harden the entire game – knocked off Arizona State, 61-49.

Two days later, Harden scored 25 points to help the Sun Devils overcome an 11-point deficit to edge the Bruins in overtime, 61-58, a couple of hours before the Trojan eked out a 65-64 win over Arizona in the Galen Center.

My apologies are offered to all former, present and future UC San Diego Tritons.

In my Saturday Press-Telegram story about the MPSF volleyball match played between UCSD and Long Beach State Friday night in the Walter Pyramid, I referred to UCSD as the “Toreros.”

The Toreros is the nickname of the University of San Diego (a private school and member of the West Coast Conference), whose basketball team upset Connecticut in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

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